So hello.
Not going to write much, because right now I am SO angry with POTUS, and with the increasingly gross HRC, that I am not actually coherent. So it would not be perfect and incisive anger. Just snark.
Some highlights of the day:
1. The wreathlaying at Tomb of the Unknowns. Knights Out represented, and did a great job, and it was very moving. Usually the changing of the guard crowd is not a bunch of super weepy queers. Grade: A
2. The Leonard Matlovich memorial, which was theoretically also supposed to be a DADT protest. It was very moving, but damn it went on and on and on. Also, why were there no women? And why was it so extremely white? More on this tomorrow — best part was Tracy Thorne, once upon a time a dashing Navy pilot, who showed up with his cute partner and their adorable children; boychild was carrying a purse and wearing nail polish. Grade: speeches B (except David Mixner, who was all kinds of A). cute kids: A
3. Cleve Jones & Sherry Wolf at Busboys & Poets. This is going to require LOTS more blogging later. It was extremely interesting and beautiful, and Sherry especially spoke a lot to how things like DOMA and DADT, even though they are not radical issues at all, are part of the radical problem. Definitely more on this later. Also, Sherry and Cleve were the first people all day who seemed to WANT to include trans people, bisexual people, polyamorous people, radical queers, and folks who are not HRCsexuals in their March. It gave me great hope for tomorrow.
4. meeting lots of Twitter pals at Busboys. Yay awesome queers who are so damn young!!!!!
5. AIDS/HIV rally. Finally! Queers! Trans women! People of color! Old queers! Fat queers! Faeries! and a lot of A-list gays & lesbians apparently shunning the HRC event.
6. HRC dinner with POTUS. Yeah, this will take more time. Must think through response so I can breathe again. Short version: WTF? Slightly less short version: Look, Obama said lots of pretty words and the fabulous homotocracy gave him a dozen standing ovations. Neat. No trannies. Not even at the “Stonewall protests.” I was a little surprised by how thoroughly trans folk were excised – but then I remembered that most of what he knows about the current queer universe he gets from people like Joe Solomonese (what a hole he is) and Barney Frank (uh, yeah).
So far, my radical pals are mostly right. But I am very hopeful that with this HRC travesty behind us, and all the kids in from all over the place tomorrow, the March will be better. Will be truer to a wide range of us, not just the hundreds of rich white cisgendered heteronormative unradical unfaerie undyke unbutch unfemme untrans Will & Grace L Word people at the dinner. I sure hope so.
Wow.